With the advent of digital processing technology, users can now easily combine, compile or mix media contents of different origins to achieve a unique and desired effect. This compilation or mix attains its unique identity or personality through an artist's creative selection and blending of media contents. Typically, the selection is based on contents of shorter duration but have the appropriate characteristics or elements (e.g. tempos) for blending so as to create an integral mix that is varied, but yet imparts a particular mood collectively.
The ease of access to the digital processing technology has created myriad issues for both the copyright owners, the artists who created such compilations, as well as the consumers (e.g. listeners). For example, in a DJ mix (i.e., a sequence of musical tracks typically mixed together to appear as one continuous track), there are multiple copyright owners of the different tracks or samples contained in the mix but the determination of who the copyright owners are and the specific licensing requirements can be a daunting task. There are available fingerprinting tools, but such tools are not particularly suited to deal with a compilation such as a DJ mix in which the segment where the blending of different distinct copyrighted works occurs can confuse such tools.
Accordingly, there is a need for a computer system that provides a framework within which a compilation, such as a DJ mix, can be distributed, streamed or otherwise broadcast via, for example, the Internet in a way that is compliant with the applicable copyright laws and standards. Without this framework, in order to share or publish his/her mix, a DJ may simply upload the entire mix to a generic audio streaming service, which is not supported by any copyright tracking and reporting framework. As a result, the mix may be pinpointed by copyright licensing authorities and taken down from the internet.